


This Storm Won't End

by Darkhymns



Category: Iconoclasts (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, Guilt, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 15:44:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19379767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkhymns/pseuds/Darkhymns
Summary: All he had ever loved, he continued to lose.





	This Storm Won't End

**Author's Note:**

> Old work I never remembered to post.

Robin used to be a chatterbox when she was small. An issue, for it was said that a still tongue brought forth harmony in one’s ears. Besides, as long as one’s hands could mimic the symbol of the Tri, that was all the One Concern was well… concerned with. Elro made sure to watch over his energetic sister as needed, while his father worked with steel and spanners and bolts, while his mother (Mother?) worked the fields. Family was family. He had to watch over his blood before she would also take up the tractor and the pesticides and all the blessed tools she will one day need to serve her settlement and dear Mother, the Mother to all, the only Mother that anyone would ever need. Meanwhile, a scattering of books were piled up in his room, and it was only through sheer luck that he had a knack for numbers and formulas that played out in his head and not a struggle he would need to carve through like so many others.

Their home was humble, because extravagance and pleasure in the material was a sin, and there was much to be said about his family’s humbleness. His mother would keep her head bowed with a smile whenever she returned home, dandelion seeds pinpricking the entirety of her jumpsuit. But in her hand one day, she held a lofty sunflower, its petals already dried out by the daylight. Robin accepted the gift as Elro stood beside her, noting how much it matched her hair whenever she fiddled with the stove when it broke, or the water heater when it was being particularly loud and cranky. But family comes first, family before everything, and he would not tell anyone anything, even if her future profession had already been chosen for her. He would watch out for her, just like Mother said (or mother?), and he would work, and they would be happy, and that would be that.

Their mother was pleased with quiet voices and nodding heads, and when she died, Robin reflexively obeyed that to a fault. A still tongue brought forth harmony, but the noise in Elro’s head had never stopped buzzing since that day. His father simply worked, and so did Robin, while every night she made sure to scrub the oil from her jacket into a bucket before she would dump the dirty water out into the grass. Elro kept that sunflower pressed between one of his books. If she wouldn’t remember what their mother wanted, at least he would preserve that memory.

At least he would do that much.

* * *

His books were destroyed during the Penance, the sunflower most likely ripped to shreds. It is easier to think of that than of what else he has lost, has continued to lose. The sword in his hand was as frail as an old stem, and the sparks it made against the impossibly fast spikes only highlighted the terror in their faces.

At least back then, he could blame his father. In here, after it was over, there was no one left but himself.

* * *

Things break eventually, even those with Ivory in their veins. And he was less than that as the pieces suddenly fell from his hands. He reached for his hair as the building next to them continued to rumble.

She left his grip the moment they went outside and immediately tried to go into that-

“Why are you here _why are you here?!”_ His voice cracked and it was so loud and coarse in the forest. Displeasing to the ears, but he couldn’t keep up with the speed of his heart. _“Mina said to stay there! Why do you trust her?! Why are you here, Robin?! Go home, you stupid child!”_

It can’t keep happening like this.

Sometimes a silence needs to be filled, no matter how much the servitude and quiet would please Mother. Because if he stops talking, the black thoughts in his head won’t stop turning. He had a goal once, and it used to be in his hand before he thrust it out with pure paranoia, years of research coming to fruition in one fateful explosion of seared flesh. It’s not like he wasn’t wrong – they had come for him and torn away all that he loved until the abyss that lived within his skull wouldn’t stop its constant movement.

Robin stood before him, still mute, the wind shifting her dirty blond hair. It was as dried out as the dying plant that had blended back into the dirt, into the ivory and crimson and all else that was gone from him. She was scared, but she wouldn’t shout back. And he had to talk. He had to keep talking.

“Sorry… I’m sorry…” Breathe. One, two, three. “I can’t go through with this again.” Again, again. “You should be home. You should be safe.”

He only ever wanted safety, and the agents with their constant looming of power, the soldiers and their mindless marches, and the Ivory that pulsed away from those who just were not meant for any such country folk down below. The constant needling in his head continued to beat and the only reason he ever did anything was for their sake.

“I love you. You’re all that’s left for me.”

The shaking is constant.

All he had ever loved, he had lost. It needed to stop somewhere.

* * *

To keep a flower bright and healthy was to nourish it with sunlight and water, make sure the soil was rich, and keep it out of the way of careless children who might trample it under, or animals who would nip at it with a curious bite. His mother used to have a garden, but no one knew how to care for it when she left. Elro had no clue, but he had been able to keep the sunflower as it was, pressed between pages. The light never reached it, and it had no access to nutrients. Even though it was dead, it was safe and enclosed and if he ever took a moment to reach for it, he knew it would be there, same place, same position. It was calming and put his mind at ease-

“PUSH THE BUTTON.” A banging against glass. Mina’s face was distant, growing more and more so as he headed back for the entrance. “You said you would! What is wrong with you?!”

He doesn’t need to shout anymore. The thoughts in his head had come to a standstill. Suddenly, the way was clear, ever since Teegan had insisted he’d go along with this. His remaining arm was no longer aching, and his phantom arm was no longer anything at all.

“I won’t do it.” All he has left. The petals were dark and wilted, but there, out in the elements where he can’t shield them from. “I won’t send my sister away like this. We are going home.”

“It’s the end of the world! There won’t be anything left.”

No. She was still left. For him. All he has left.

“Robin wants it, Elro! You need to!”

How could something so frail know what it wants? “She doesn’t know what she wants.” And that was that.

If it’s there, between the pages, it would stay safe. She used to stay indoors, to work on her machines. And now look what happened, when one leaves their home. Look what happens.

“None of you people know what you want.”

Mina banged her fist against the glass so much, it shook the floor. Her voice was enough to encompass them both and the eerily calm storm in his head. “She is waiting for you to do this! Push the button!”

She was exposed to the rain and the relentless sun. “I am going to get her and we are going home.” Because everything he has ever loved has left him, and if he loses her, he will have lost everything and everyone. Whatever nonsense Mina was shouting was worthless. Only because Robin had been kind. She didn’t know when to not be kind, when to not rescind her help. Family was family, and strangers like her had no right to make demands. What did she lose? If anything?

Mina had good aim. He’ll give her that much.

* * *

He woke up, after it was all supposed to end, but didn’t. The window outside showed the moon, still broken and spilling out its Ivory into space. He woke up and remembered the sunflower he used to keep was nothing now but ground up dust.

Elro raised his head, still slumped over in his chair. Robin was lying in bed, but he didn’t hear any steady breathing. Just the soft purring of the cat that Mina had decided to bring along from the city, and then just as quickly abandoned. It curled up by the bedpost, as Robin’s face was turned to the wall.

“Robin?” he called out. “Sunflower?”

She shifted, but didn’t answer. Instead, she curled inward, the bright red of her mechanic’s jacket burning bright in the dark.

He knew that by the next day, she would leave to Mother knows where. (Dead, all dead, and so was everything else except the world itself). The book was torn to shreds. Their home was still in shambles.

He went back to sleep, terrified. 

All he had ever loved, he continued to lose.


End file.
